Image of a Crying, Caged Toddler Goes Viral

Since the time an upsetting image of a crying toddler caged has gone viral, US Immigration officials are being criticized for the detainment. While according to one side of the story, US immigration officials seem to be responsible, the other side seems to be telling something else.

The image of the little boy crying in a cage was shared by an activist and
“undocumented” migrant, Jose Antonio Vargas. With his post, he tried to criticize the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown on families.

Vargas stated in the same threat that he shared the photo from one of his friend’s timeline and was still searching for the actual source. On the other hand, the image went viral where Vargas’ post got more than 23000 retweets and lot of them even sharing the image across their own social media accounts.

Vargas shared the photo as it reminded him of his detainment by ICE in McAllen, Texas in 2014 where he found kids locked up the same way as in the current photo. He wrote, “It wasn’t okay then, it’s not okay now”.

However, it has now been found that the image was not from a detention facility but was taken from a protest against Trump’s immigration policies held on June 10 outside Dallas City Hall. Organized by Brown Berets de Cemanahuac, the protest was held to withdraw the policy of family separation and detaining undocumented children.

According to new findings, the photo of the child in the cage was taken and posted by Leroy Peña but was deleted from his Facebook page. Pena has admitted that he took the original photo. He also explained that the boy followed his brother into the cage and then started crying seeing his mother outside. Pena said that “He was only in there for 30 seconds”.

this photo is from a protest! while i agree with the sentiment behind the tweet we need to be sure to fact check and source anything we share so that our mistakes don’t make things worse and shift the narrative away from the real problem. https://t.co/CNIJdXNugT

Even after knowing that the photo is not what is it depicts, some activists are arguing that despite the irrelevancy of the origin of the photo, it does represent the real issue. Supporting the concern, Arizona lawmaker, Catherine Miranda stated that “How does taking a 4-year-old from their parents and jailing them make us safer? The cruelty of Trump’s policies of today are real. Families belong together not torn apart and most definitely should not be caged like an animal.”

Even though users tried to explain the circumstances of the photo that they were not what they alleged to be, however, she didn’t delete the post and condemned users for showing her the facts.

“You’re part of the problem of division. If I’m letting people know an example of a picture that Trump supports… jump on board with fighting against it. Stop being part of dividing our Latino community,” replied Miranda.

A ‘Zero-tolerance’ policy was announced by Attorney General Jess Sessions in April for separating illegal immigrants from their children who crossed the border. Homeland Security started referring all cases of illegal immigrants in May. According to Department of Homeland Security stats, they have separated almost 2000 children from their parents in these six weeks.